Child sacrifices in Carthage

[guy]

There is a great debate about whether either the Phoenicians or their later colony, the Carthaginians, practiced child sacrifice. Many cultures have been known to practice child sacrifice (see post below):

Plutarch (AD 50-120) certainly thought so:

Quote

But with full knowledge and understanding, [the Carthaginians] offered up their own children, and those without children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds.

—Plutarch, Moralia II.171C

Note: Plutarch wrote more than a century after the final destruction of Carthage (146 BCE).

 

The Bible contains numerous quotes condemning child sacrifices carried out by the Phoenicians, who were ancestors of the Carthaginians.

 

Leviticus: 18:21:

Quote

“’Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.

Molek was once believed to be a Canaanite/Phoenician deity, but recent research suggests that the name Molek may refer to a particular type of sacrifice rather than to a deity.

 

Moses' instructions to Israel as it entered Canaan (the home of the Phoenicians) are found in Deuteronomy 12:31:

 

Quote

You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

 

Another passage in Jeremiah 32:35:

Quote

They built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molek, though I never commanded—nor did it enter my mind—that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin.

 

Note about these Biblical quotes:

✔ The biblical passages predate Carthage’s rise.

✔ They refer to Canaanite/Phoenician practices in the Levant, not to Punic (Carthaginian) practices in North Africa.

✔ Later Greco-Roman writers made similar accusations against Carthage, but that is a separate tradition.

 

Here is a quote by Diodorus Siculus, the Greek historian from Roman Sicily, writing in the 1st century BCE about Carthage:

Quote

14.4They also alleged that Cronus⁠ [Baal or Hammon] had turned against them since, in former times, they had been accustomed to sacrifice to this god the noblest of their sons, but more recently, secretly buying and nurturing children, they had sent these to the sacrifice. When an investigation was made, some of those who had been sacrificed were discovered to have been supposititious. 5 When they had given thought to these things and saw their enemy encamped before their walls, they were filled with superstitious dread, for they believed that they had neglected the honours of the gods that their fathers had established. In their zeal to make amends for their omission, they selected two hundred of the noblest children and sacrificed them publicly; and others who were under suspicion sacrificed themselves voluntarily, in number not less than three hundred. 6 There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus, extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.

LacusCurtius • Diodorus Siculus — Book XX Chapters 1‑18

 

Diodorus Siculus is a significant ancient historian. Although his writings provide valuable insights, they are frequently seen as derivative, somewhat uncritical, and sometimes inconsistent in timeline. He often copies earlier sources with minimal scrutiny, making the trustworthiness of his accounts reliant on those sources' quality. Contemporary scholars value him for safeguarding material that might have otherwise disappeared, yet they scrutinize his narrative carefully.

 

 

Scholars cite this passage from Tertullian's Apologeticum 9.2-3 when discussing Punic child sacrifice continuing into Roman Africa after the Carthaginian Empire had been vanquished.

This would support the idea that the practice of child sacrifice persisted even later, suggesting that it was a long-standing tradition among the Carthaginians.

Quote

[2] Children were openly sacrificed in Africa to Saturn as lately as the proconsulship of Tiberius, who exposed to public gaze the priests suspended on the sacred trees overshadowing their temple-so many crosses on which the punishment which justice craved overtook their crimes, as the soldiers of our country still can testify who did that very work for that proconsul. [3] And even now that sacred crime still continues to be done in secret. It is not only Christians, you see, who despise you; for all that you do there is neither any crime thoroughly and abidingly eradicated, nor does any of your gods reform his ways.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III: The Apology

 

The issue with this quote attributed to Tertullian (AD 155-220) is that there is no historical evidence of a "proconsul Tiberius" in Africa. The reference appears isolated and lacks confirmation. Tertullian, born and active in Roman Carthage, was a Christian apologist. His statement may have been made for rhetorical effect rather than as a historical fact. While it might reflect local tradition, it could also be pure myth.

 

Here are articles that support the belief that the Carthaginians did, in fact, perform child sacrifice:

Ancient Carthaginians really did sacrifice their children | University of Oxford

At Carthage, Child Sacrifice? - Biblical Archaeology Society

 

And here is an excellent article that refutes the belief:

Two tales of one city: data, inference and Carthaginian infant sacrifice | Antiquity | Cambridge Core

Quote

 

The Tophets primarily contained the remains of pre- and perinates, newborns, and children aged ≤5 years and were located outside the city. In contrast, the main cemeteries were within the city limits and generally buried individuals aged ≥5 years. Only those from the Tophet were cremated and placed in urns. The differences in urn contents—ranging from whole individuals to partially burned remains, including articulated skeletal parts—likely reflect variations in cremation times and recovery efforts. Additionally, cloth adhering to the inside of a barely burned perinate's ilium suggests that, after cooling, the bones were collected, wrapped, or placed in sacks before being put into urns.

It's noteworthy that the Carthaginians had two distinct cemeteries, reflecting the Punic-influenced Roman-Carthaginian tradition of not viewing children as complete 'persons’ until reaching a certain age. Moreover, Becker's studies of Cazzanello and other sites in southern Etruria, such as Tarquinia, reveal that Etruscan culture commonly buried preborn babies, perinates, and young children under five in separate cemeteries from the main one.

Rather than viewing the Carthage Tophet solely as a sanctuary for sacrifices, we might see it more warmly as a human cemetery—perhaps with or without accompanying animal sacrifices—for those who died before being fully accepted into society. These individuals were returned to the gods through cremation, their spirits making a final journey. Notably, while both the Carthage Tophet and Cazzanello's children's cemetery contain perinates and children, only those at the Tophet were cremated. This difference seems to reflect cultural choices in burial practices rather than sacrificial intent, highlighting the rich diversity of their traditions.

 

 

Tophets were sacred Phoenician‑Punic sanctuaries (pictured above) located across the Mediterranean — in places like Carthage, Sardinia, Sicily, North Africa, and possibly Malta. These sites held thousands of urns containing the cremated remains of infants and were linked to offerings to Tanit and Baal Hammon. While Carthage's tophet was the largest, it was part of a wider Punic religious tradition rather than an isolated occurrence.

 

Adrian Goldsworthy had a thoughtful evaluation of the evidence for Carthaginian child sacrifices:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2025 by guy

[guy]

Here’s an interesting video that delves into whether the Carthaginians committed child sacrifice: